Foster-to-Adopt?

Hi Abba. I really thought that you were leading us to adopt from China...and maybe we will at some point. We got news the other day from a friend that China had some upcoming changes (May 2007) to it's requirements to adopt from China. The body mass index had to be at 40 or better. I just sqeeze by with this one. But, the one that I was really worried about since we rent our house was that you had to have combined assets of $80,000. We had been talking about buying our own house, but then we didn't want to really strap us with trying to do the adoption on top of all that too. So, we decided to stay here until our adoption was finalized. With this upcoming change, we'd have to move first to qualify. I had everything confirmd with CCAI that this was really happening and wasn't just rumors. She said if we got our application in by December 31st and got our papers into China by April 13 we'd be grandfathered in under the old rules. Andy and I sat and talked...we'd have to go into debt to make that happen as we'd really have to be on top of things and start now to ensure that we were logged into China by then. As much as we want a baby, Andy's just not comfortable taking on that much debt with the fact that we just got hit with some medical and dental bills that we need to get paid off (that was the original plan anyway that we were going to pay off those before starting the adoption).

A friend at work had told me about one of her friends that became a foster parent of like 10 kids and she adopted 7 of those. She had asked me if we had ever given it any thought. It's something we had talked about a year or two ago, but I've always been afraid to adopt domestically as I think it would be heartbreaking to have to give the kids up if/when that happened. Anyway, I finally thought..."are you going to let fear rule your decision or are you going to step out on faith and go for it...if you do have to give some of them up..yes it's going to hurt, but it's a chance to give them a better life even if it's just for a little while." We were sitting on the couch the other night and I brought it up to Andy and he didn't even have to think twice about it...he wants to do it.

I sent out some inquiries all last night (I couldn't sleep) to some places...one being the Texas Baptist Children's Home (it's right here in Waxahachie) about becoming foster-to-adopt parents. They have training that starts up in January and as long as they have openings we plan on being there.

I kinda told Deidra what was going on a little bit when we sat and looked at the kids in the state system online that were waiting to be adopted. She's all excited, although I don't think she understands 100%. I think we're going to wind up putting bunk beds in Deidra's room and having that being the girl room and we'll put bunk beds in the office and get that geared up to being the boy's room.

The biggest thing that I want to happen is that I want her to be the big sister and continue to be the oldest. We're pretty excited though...and a little nervous too. :-) But, maybe we can plan on adding to our family a little sooner than we thought and it's definitely a chance to give these kids a better and more stable environment.

As for China...we won't totally rule it out...maybe it's something that we can look into again at some point down the road...we'll just have to see where the journey takes us.